


Kiss Me, Pull the Wool Over My Eyes

by hedgerowhag



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bottom Kylo Ren, Casual Sex, Friends With Benefits, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mutual Pining, Safer Sex, a medium mess Armitage hux, featuring: the biggest mess kylo ren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 09:22:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15838365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hedgerowhag/pseuds/hedgerowhag
Summary: Hux was barely keeping himself alive in a city he was starting to lose focus of. Lucky he wasn’t alone.





	Kiss Me, Pull the Wool Over My Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Title from marrow by Ezra vine
> 
> Sorry this might be all over the place, I’m not having the best time rn

A lock clicked in a frame down the corridor. Hux looked up from his phone, tipping the screen toward his chest. The yellow lights striping the ceiling washed the grey carpet yellow and emphasised the stains underneath the doors lining the hallway. Nine doors down, on the opposite side, there was a man circling a bundle of keys around his thumb.

He was looking at Hux, meeting his eyes. He was like a blot of black, in black jeans and hoodie hanging down past his hips and the drawstrings cinched around his face. His sallow skin was the only thing that stood out against the black.

He stared like he was trying to remember Hux’s name, clicking through syllables that might have been attached to his face in a year book album.

Feeling rude, Hux lifted a hand to wave. In his other palm, his phone was buzzing. He swiped to pick up the call, turning to the side staircase of the building block.

 

* * *

 

  
Everyone left the club with company. Hux, alone, made the most of the bar. He was counting his change, drinking the last of his beer – still cold in his palm. His brain was fuzzy behind his eyes, like it had melted into a puddle of hot syrup.

Hux missed his pocket twice as he tried to put away his wallet and on the last try his elbow was shoved. He fell against the bar and his beer slammed onto the countertop, spilling dregs and rolling off the edge. Hux didn’t hear the glass fall. He peeled his damp shirt away from his chest as he stood straight, hissing through his teeth.

Hux circled the club’s crowds, one hand on the wall and the other fisted on the zipper of his jacket. The restrooms were downstairs, on the corridor painted black with white spotlights and generic music playing low over the boom of upstairs.

There was no attendant by the door and water collected in the cracks of the grey tiled floor. The paper towels were drooping into the trash from the dispenser and the faucets were caked with soap that hadn’t been replaced in months. All the drains were plugged with a mix of paper towels and vomit.

Hux scraped his shirt with his hand soaked in water, rocking forward on his heels as he watched the black fabric darken. A toilet was flushed at the end of the row of stalls. Hux wiped the spit collecting on the edges of his mouth and turned off the faucet.

The sopping fabric of Hux’s shirt was scrunched in his hands as he looked in the mirror at the deep hollows around his mouth and underneath his cheeks. He made a face, showing his teeth to the reflection. Somewhere, in the tiled room, wet coughing filled a toilet bowl. Shoes squeaked on the tiles.

Hux frowned and look down the length of the stalls. Only one door was closed. He shook off his hands as the rubber soles scraped on the floor again. Something slopped into the water while he approached the door and pushed it, finding it only propped against intrusion.

There was a shuddering hitch as the edge of the door jabbed the ribs of a man collapsed on the floor. He curled back into the gap between the toilet and the cubicle wall, feet pushing against the cracks in the tiles. His hands drooped into the toilet bowl, fingers bending with numb indifference on the seat as spit dripped from his lip into the water that Hux smelled from the threshold.

Underneath the matted hair, the man’s mouth twitched and a wet chunk of maybe-food dropped into the toilet bowl. Hearing it plop, the man retched again. A fresh stream of bile collected in the toilet as Hux turned away.

Rubber squeaked on the tiles. Hux cursed.

The man had enough sense to push back his hair, but his hands were spreading digested food along his scalp – defeating the purpose. Staring at the spectacle, Hux began to recognise the man, placing the dark hair and sallow skin in the memory from the corridor of his apartment block. The man turned toward him, coughing up sour spit. His unfocused eyes drifted over Hux. He looked like he was fading.

Hux flinched when the man moaned and dropped his head onto the rim of the toilet. He was sobbing as more bile dripped into the beige-yellow water. He looked at Hux with watering eyes. His jaw was clenched and shuddering behind his red, chapped lips.

“Wait here,” Hux told him, walking out of restroom. “Just wait there, I’ll get someone to help you.”

He didn’t look back when he heard a sob muffled by the plastic of the toilet.

The main floor of the club was swaying out of beat with the music. Hux walked past the bar, excusing himself through the crowd at the narrow corridor from the club. The security on the threshold watched Hux leave the club, shutting the door behind him.

The music followed Hux down the street from the club’s balconies. He pulled up the collar of his jacket, walking briskly along the sluggish traffic. Taxi drivers were fighting to pull up to the curb. Hux ignored them, despite struggling to keep a straight line.

A traffic light was taking too long to change at the crossing. Hux rocked on his heels as people packed around him, straining forward as cars cut through the puddles collected in the dip of the sidewalk. The spray caught on the hem of Hux’s jeans as he turned from the traffic light changing to yellow.

The security did not bother to glance over Hux as he pushed into the door of the club. He didn’t know if he had sobered or if he is drunk enough to believe it as he walked through the fogged rooms, avoiding the stumbling figures.

There was someone washing their hands in the restroom, spilling water onto the floor with the yellow-green lines between the tiles. The heaving in the last stall was covered by the gusts of the air dryer. The door had been nudged closed by someone.

Hux pushed inside and grabbed the man under his arms without courtesy, using the momentum to pull him from the toilet. There was no fight to him and he didn’t seem to weigh much more than the bones that held up his body. He fell against Hux, crashing them both into the door and closing it in the frame.

Holding the man in front of his chest, Hux forced both of them out of the stall. Warmth covered his hands and Hux thought the guy had decency to help and hold on, but he felt the heat run down the cuffs of his jacket. Hux flicked a hand, spattering dark brown spots across the tiles.

They crawled up the steps to the ground floor of the club. Hux herded aside people with his damp sleeve as he coughed on the fumes of the fog machines. The man tripped down the two short steps toward the club’s exit and was caught by one of the security staff while the other held the door open and allowed Hux to make the manoeuvre out of the building without a comment.

Together, they slumped in the doorway of a closed bank as rain began to speckle the flagstones of the sidewalk. Hux held one of the man’s arms around his shoulders, letting him level his weight between the locked door and Hux. They were waiting for a stream of taxis to enter onto the road.

Hux thought it was the clogged drains filling with rain water when he heard the wet gulping. But then it was cut off with a choked up whimper. Hux watched liquid run down the man’s chin and onto the front of his hoodie, soaking through before it could reach the waistband of his jeans. More poured from his slack mouth, catching in his hair that was stuck to his sweaty cheeks and jaw. The man sobbed. Hux looked away.

The taxi driver had almost turned Hux away when he saw the state of them. But Hux pushed cash at him through the crack in window and talked him out of pressing on the gas.

There were wet tracks on the seat when Hux pulled his neighbour out of the taxi. The ride had been slow in the three in the morning traffic, rocking on every bump and crack in the road. Hux held his arms braced against the car door and the lock of the seat belt as the body next to him slumped over his side.

Hux struggled to grip the man as they walked to the foyer of their apartment block. The rain had left the steps damp, hindering the man from putting one foot directly in front of the other as he slipped and fell back. The elevator seemed like a neat way of disposing of him, but Hux knew he would trip on him in the morning.

The man was almost sobbing as Hux guided him on their floor. He was belching into his closed mouth and clinging to the door handles of the apartments they passed. Hux counted the apartments, until they reached the ninth down from his, across the corridor.

“You’ve got your keys?” he asked the man who continued to cry but nodded. His frothing spit dripped on the floor as he fumbled with the pockets of his jeans underneath the damp hoodie. He smelled like he had slept in alley behind the club.

Hux stood aside and watched the man lean his forehead against the door of his apartment, thumbing with his numb fingers the ring of keys. His face was almost green, skin sunken underneath his eyes and cheeks. There was a yellow-brown liquid running from his nose.

The lock clicked and the door opened by a crack. The man clung to the frame as he stared back at Hux. There were stains on the collar of his t-shirt that stuck to his neck, speckled by squashed chunks of beige.

“Goodnight?” Hux said and turned from the door.

He smelled like bile in the morning, from his shoes to the shoulders of his jacket which he threw in the trash once he made it downstairs.

  

* * *

 

  
Nobody cleaned the oven trays. Not after the years of grease that blackened them. Hux bought kitchen foil to protect the last of his dignity and hygiene. He had considered buying padlocks for the cupboards and the oven while he used it, but he swallowed that part of his dignity for the sake of avoiding an eviction.

Though he still refused to budge his judgment on the person who decided to eat one of his microwave meals and leave the tub behind after he had left the communal kitchen to change of his rain drenched clothes. It was even placed back into the microwave, with a spit cleaned fork on top of the lid. Hux didn’t bother moving the garbage out of the microwave.

A bubble of cheese popped and deflated on the pizza that had melted into the foiled spread across the tray in the oven. Hux sat in front of the fogged glass, legs crossed, and elbows propped on his knees as he typed on his phone. He had come home, showered and changed into layers of pyjamas and sweat pants with a sweater pulled over the top. The kitchen lino still froze a patch into his ass as his waited for his cheese-tomato pizza to cook.

The kitchen door scraped across the lino. Wet shoes tacked to the floor, lifting off with a smack. Hux turned to the crinkling of a shopping bag that hung off a pale wrist between a fingerless glove and the sleeve of an army jacket layered over a fleece sweater – also black. Without a hood, the snapback pushed away the black curls of the man’s hair over his face and around his ears. He looked better without vomit running down his chin.

His bruised eyes blinked at Hux. “Hey, neighbour,” the man said.

Hux nodded and watched the man drop his backpack and carrier bag onto the counter. Melting cheese crackled in the oven.

“Thank you for the other night,” the man said as he folded a damp receipt. “I really thought I was going to die down there.”

Hux looked at the speckled design of the lino that shifted with the air bubbles underneath the surface. “We were going the same way,” he said.

“Oh yeah,” the guy laughed. “Right. So.” He leaned forward against the counter, looking down the shoulder at Hux. “What’s your name, neighbour?”

Hux pulled a hand from under his sweater and reached it out as he replied, “Hux.”

The fingerless glove was damp and matted with balls of polyester hairs, the palm left a wet print on Hux’s hand. “Kylo,” the other man said. “I could look after your dinner while it’s cooking, if you want.”

Hux pulled back his hand and stuffed it under the hem of his sweater. “What?”

“I’m gonna make dinner anyway, I can keep an eye on it.”

“For what?”

“Besides as a favour for dragging my ass back home? I dunno.”

Hux stood from the lino floor. His ass was sore from the cold and his back popped. Kylo took off his cap and brushed out his hair with a gloved hand. He smelled of the frozen foods aisle and body spray. Kylo felt through the pockets of his jeans, pulling out a half-smoked cigarette. He shoved it between his cracked lips as he looked Hux down.

“It’s fine,” Kylo told him. “Go on.”

It was raining when Hux sat up to the knock on the door of his apartment. Kylo was wearing his cap backwards, holding his backpack in one hand and a wad of paper towels in the other as he rocked back and forth on his toes.

“Your—Your pizza’s done,” he said.

Hux nodded, “Okay.”

Kylo nodded in return but didn’t move from the doorway. He squeezed the paper towels and his mouth opened, showing the chipped line of his teeth.

“Okay?” Hux repeated and shouldered past Kylo, refusing to meet his stare.

The oven door was open and pieces of foil with burned cheese were dropped to the floor. Hux pulled the tray out with a towel wrapped around his hand. There was a square cut from the pizza, just inside the crust, and the foil scraped out.

Hux dropped the scorching tray onto the counter, laughing.

 

* * *

   
It was Friday. The streets were emptying and the bars were thick with bodies shifting toward the light of the lamps hanging over the lined bottles behind the counter.

Hux was falling asleep at the table he filled with his colleagues. The dark and the weeks of continuous work have been killing them, setting them to sleep before it had even hit six in the afternoon.

However, there was nothing Hux would not do to avoid spending more time than necessary to eat and sleep at his apartment. It was small enough for him to touch the opposite wall while sitting on the edge of the bed. There was a mini fridge, a set of draws and a window with mould on the frame. The bathroom, at least, was private.

The rooms didn’t have air conditioning, but the corridors were ventilated and the smells of stale bodies were pushed out toward the stairways. Then and again, a cloud of stink indicated that someone had burned their dinner. It was like a hospital with people he never saw. Except for Kylo.

It had been a week since Hux last seen him, jogging up the staircase with his backpack bouncing on his shoulders. He wore loose black jeans and the same fleece and army jacket. He ran past Hux with a grin.

Music clapped through the bar, jerking Hux out of his thoughts.The back of Hux’s chair was shoved, squashing him against the table. There were ties and wallets thrown between the puddles on the laminated timber. Hux watched Phasma scrolled through her phone with her eyes half open. Thanisson seemed out cold despite the herd of students squabbling behind him.

Hux flicked the edge of Phasma’s phone, making her look up. “I’m going to go,” he mouthed to her, standing from the table. She gave him half a wave to see him off.

Hux walked his way back home, indulging in wallowing in the semi-fresh air instead of the back of a taxi. He was frozen, but awake, walking against the wind in the night. His face was red and nose dripping when he ran up the steps to peeling metal door of the apartment foyer.

A light flicked on from the overhang as Hux reached for his key fob. He wrapped the keyring on a finger and looked up. As though yanked by the collar, Hux jerked back and almost fell down the steps.

Catching his balance, Hux wheezed out a breathe and stared at the pale ankles peeking between the white soled sneakers and black sweatpants. The sleeper’s knees were pressed to his face, the collar of the black jacket pushed up by rigid crossed arms as the person slept on their side. A strap bound backpack pillowed the sleeper’s head in a knitted black hat with hair pooling out from between the wool and the jacket’s collar.

The frost on the concrete shimmered underneath the lamp of the overhang. Dark patches had melted into the concrete around the sleeper.  
Hux bent down and hissed, “Kylo?”

He was cold when Hux touched him on the shoulder. He repeated his name and pushed Kylo, watching his face twitch. There were spots of purple on his sallow cheeks as he looked up from the collar of his jacket. His eyelashes peeled apart and eyes searched around Hux. Then, he started sobbing, shoving his face into the crook of his elbow.

Hux stood back as Kylo twisted together into a lump on the concrete, shaking as he cried.

“I jus’ wanna go to sle—ep,” Kylo whimpered into the cuff of his sleeve as he tried to wipe his snot crusted nose.

The backpack slipped on the frost as Kylo sat up against the door. He was shaking and looking at Hux with red eyes. He didn’t seem drunk, he was just numb from the cold that Hux felt on his skin as he pulled Kylo to his feet.

“Were you— Evicted?” Hux prompted as Kylo wobbled back against the door and shook his head.

“Flew out Wednesday night,” Kylo mumbled to him. “To visit pa—arents. Got stuck—At the overlay. Missed the flight, got another. It kept getting delayed from the weather, then cancelled.”

Hux takes out his key fob as Kylo continued to shake underneath his thin fleece sweater and jacket. He opened the front door, pushing aside Kylo and his backpack.

“I tried to rent a car, drive home,” Kylo said as he sniffed up the line of snot dripping to his lip. “Forgot my license.”

Hux waited in the threshold for Kylo to pick up his backpack. As he moved, Hux could smell the days of sweat that had collected under his clothes.

“Tried to get a flight home,” continued Kylo. “That got delayed again, and again—”

Hux breathed in the mildly warm air of the foyer as Kylo sobbed. He pushed his hands into his pockets and asked, “And you were waiting outside because—?”

Kylo’s lips were pushed out and his words were thick as he stammered, “I can’t find my keys. Think I lost ‘em when they were throwing shit out of my bag in the airport.”

The wind rocked the door on the hinges, pushing Kylo into the foyer. He closed the door. Hux was aching for another drink, to smoke. He stared at Kylo’s red face under the ceiling lights.

“You can’t find your keys,” he said.

Kylo shook his head.

Hux closed the door took the staircase, slowly lifting each foot onto the next step. He looked back at Kylo. “Come on,” he said, shrugging his shoulder toward the stairs.

Kylo was out of it as he waited for Hux to unlock the door of his apartment. His shaking was worse in the relative warmth of the corridor. Once they were in the room, Hux pushed Kylo into the bathroom, switching on the shower and directing him to use it. Hux threw in the backpack after Kylo before closing the door. Alone, Hux dropped his outdoor clothes onto the floor underneath the coatrack.

The glass of the window was squeaking in the frame, the pipes popped and clicked in the ceiling. Hux dragged out spare blankets from under the bed and threw them onto the covers. He would shower in the morning, he decided, changing into a hoodie and sweatpants as he listened to the bottles sputtering in the bathroom.

Hux pulled on his old gym sneakers and wandered through the hallway to the kitchen. It was silent, a faint smell of sour yogurt fogged the air. He wobbled to make coffee, almost placing the milk in a cupboard instead of the fridge. He burned his fingers when he jammed them into the handle of the mug and shuffled back into the hallway.

Hux was barely awake when he returned to his room. Kylo was leaning against the bathroom door, dressed in leggings and a hoodie that passed to mid-thigh. The lights were off, water pattered onto the floor. There was a folded towel on Kylo’s crossed arms and his backpack was propped against the wall.

“Is that mine?” Hux pointed to the towel. “Did I say you could take one?”

Kylo stared. Between arguing and apologising, his mouth hung open.

“Doesn’t matter,” Hux scoffed and lifted the coffee toward Kylo. But he did nothing until Hux pressed the mug onto his closed hand and stripped the towel off his arm to throw on top of the laundry bag.

“I’ll sleep against the wall,” Hux said, gesturing to the bed. He climbed in while Kylo continued to slouch on the door.

Hux pulled the covers around his knees, sitting against the wall, and flicked on his phone. The light sparked up in the room, giving a view of Kylo’s pale hands around the coffee mug and the front of his hoodie. Hux squinted.

“What is that?” he asked. “What the hell are you wearing?”

Kylo tugged the hem of his hoodie, straightening the letters of the white-on-red ‘Princess’ logo on the black background – a parody copy of the ‘Supreme’ sign.

“It’s comfortable,” Kylo explained before finally taking a drink out of the mug. “I replaced the ruined one after I vomited on it. The smell even stuck in the washing machine. I’m never going back to that laundromat.”

Hux glared as Kylo sat on the edge of the low bed. His knees stuck out, bent almost to his chest. Hux pushed him with his foot. “Disgusting,” he said and Kylo snorted into the coffee.

Too tired to have any dignity, Hux tipped down onto the mattress. He turned to the wall and dragged the covers to his nose, rubbing his legs together as he waited for the mattress to warm up.

The mug thumped on the carpet floor. The covers lifted, but Kylo didn’t move to get underneath them. Hux didn’t bother with courtesy, shoving his head against the pillow – setting to sleep. Kylo lowered himself to the mattress like a glacier melting out against the heat of Hux’s back. He bowed himself away, grunting when Kylo’s knees touched his thighs.

Kylo shifted and his weight rocked the mattress. The glass creaked in the window frame as the wind passed in the street. Someone walked beside the door.Laughter disappeared upstairs. Everything was pounding with presence, somehow revealed in the absence of light.

There was a hand on Hux’s back, fingers twitching as they worked up the hem of his sweater.

“I thought I was going to die out there,” Kylo said in the muffle of the covers. “Thanks. It’s been the crappiest two-ish days.”

Cold fingertips reached up his ribs, toward his stomach. Hux frowned and sighed. Kylo’s hand pressed into the soft curve of his shapeless stomach.

Looking over his shoulder hazily, Hux muttered, “I want to sleep.”

“Okay,” Kylo said. His thumb rubbed on Hux’s skin, growing warmer against him.

 

* * *

   
The washing machine was trembling underneath Hux, knocking the spoon against the rim of his coffee mug. He was leaning back on the washing machine, the swirl of grey gradients flopping between his legs in the porthole of plastic. Occasionally, the red sign of ‘Princess’ slapped against it.

Kylo had stayed two more nights with Hux after he was unable to find his keys, again. It was the weekend, so it wasn’t as if he could get a replacement until Monday. Together, they slept through the weekend in the closet sized apartment, navigating it the best they could.

From the office chair shoved against the fold-out desk, Hux had watched Kylo lie on the bed and type on his phone – using him as a distraction from his laptop screen. He would wear black and red athletic leggings and the one hoodie that hung off him like a blanket with the sleeves pulled down to his knuckles.

Every night Kylo pushed his hands under Hux’s shirt. Sometimes, he would bring them down to his hips while his legs were pressed against Hux’s – like there was a place for Kylo in his bed. But, Hux didn’t push him away.

The washing machine was changing into the final cycle. It was Monday evening. Kylo was going to pick up his keys after finishing his shift at the cinema. His bag was already packed by the door.

The spoon in the mug rattled as the drum of the washing machine began to spin again.

 

* * *

   
Winter wasn’t easing off. Every night was colder, biting the soles of Hux’s feet as he made morning coffee, burning into the soles of old sneakers. Every morning felt like a tragedy, from peeling his eyes open to climbing out of the covers that had finally warmed up from the night.

It was another late evening. Hux was coming from work, his face red with frost. Kylo was in the corridor, carrying a dirty plate out of his apartment. He was wearing thick socks, stretched out leggings, and the hoodie with the red and white logo print on his chest. He was chewing one of the drawstrings.

Hux stood against his own door, sniffling, as Kylo struggled to catch the handle with his elbow to close his apartment. He was biting on his tongue, watching the grease slipping around the rim of the plate. Hux was still there when Kylo came back with the cutlery dripping in soapy suds.

“Do you want to fuck?” Hux asked when Kylo took hold of the door handle into his apartment.

  
Kylo stared, coughed, and shrugged. “Yeah sure,” he said. He wiped his mouth with his thumb. “Do you wanna fuck me, or—?”

Hux nodded. He looked at the shapeless slump of Kylo’s clothing, the pale line of his throat between his hair and the collar of his hoodie. “Do you need some time?”

“No—No.” Kylo opened the door of his apartment and the plate and fork clacked as he set them down out of sight. As Kylo walked inside, Hux heard objects being scraped down onto the floor and Kylo’s bare feet wandering. He reappeared with a bottle in his hand and closed the door, walking toward Hux.

The lock clicked around the teeth of the key as Kylo’s hand found itself on the belt of Hux’s trousers. He let Kylo inside.

As Hux took of his coat and shoes, Kylo peeled down his leggings and kicked them toward the wall, leaving the hoodie to cover his naked ass. Hux approached the bed as Kylo yawned and uncapped the lube. Kneeling on the edge of the mattress, Kylo dripped the liquid over the fingers of his left hand. As he shifted, his hoodie peeked the pale ass and thighs covered in soot dots.

“Come here,” said Kylo, nodding down to the bed, before Hux could yank up the hem of his sweater to get a better look.

Hux sat down on the edge of the mattress, slowly pushing himself back against the wall while Kylo reached behind himself. His hips canted forward as his face prickled with colour. Hux watched his hand slowly work behind him, the wrist pumping with lazy movements. The front of his hoodie had drooped, covering Kylo’s groin from sight.

Hux palmed the front of his trousers as he followed the movements of Kylo’s hand, bringing his own up to feel the warmth of Kylo’s inner thigh. He pressed in the red echoes of his fingerprints into Kylo’s sallow skin as he unzipped the front of his trousers and pushed his hand down into his underwear. He was only just getting hard, feeling a dull ache in the seat of his hips while he listened to Kylo fucking himself with his fingers. Hux stroked his cock, squeezing the Kylo’s thigh underneath his hoodie – palming it as their knuckles bumped together.

Biting his lip, Hux pulled back his hand as Kylo reached over the side of the bed for the small plastic basket Hux kept for inconvenient junk. He heard foil rip as Kylo took a condom from a barely used strip and shuffled forward to pull down Hux’s trousers. He used both hands to get his bunched underwear down his hips. His eyes were fixed on Hux, but his expression was lax with his mouth slightly dropped open.

With one slick hand, Kylo took Hux cock and squeeze it before opening the condom, stroking the latex down to the base and pulling his hand back up until the head peeked out from the curl of his fingers. Kylo licked it and took Hux’s cock into his mouth as he stroked down.

With a hand on the back of Kylo’s head, Hux followed the movements, combing his lank hair out of the way. Kylo’s grunts were muffled against Hux’s stomach as he sucked his cock, bobbing his head in tandem with his hand that he brought back to stuff three fingers inside himself. Hux pinched Kylo’s ear and smirked when he had to pull off his dick to avoid biting down.

Licking the head of Hux’s cock one last time, Kylo shifted away and dropped back onto the bed, wriggling to get his head onto the pillow as he opened his thighs. Hux pulled off his trousers and knelt between Kylo’s legs, pushing apart his knees. He was flushed pink on the insides of his thighs, his ass, and his cock that was beginning to harden, lying against his flat stomach. The lube which he had fucked inside himself was running in excess onto the covers. Hux had been almost tempted to lick it off from his thighs.

“Are you not going to take this off?” Hux asked instead, tugging on the bottom of Kylo’s hoodie with the glaring logo of ‘Princess’.

Kylo shifted and pulled the hood over his head. “No, it’s cold in this place and I’m a princess.”

Hux yanked on the strings of the hood, cinching it onto Kylo’s nose. He ignored the laughter as he lifted up Kylo’s thighs onto his hips and stroked lube onto his cock. With a hand on the back of Kylo’s knee, he pressed the head of his cock against his hole and slowly ground his hips down as he filled out Kylo’s body.

It was good to finally fuck without theatrics; Too tired, too lazy, to even push out a moan. Kylo was pulling on the strings of his hoodie, covering his face, as Hux’s hips pressed against his ass. A small hiccup twitched Kylo’s lips as Hux settled to wait for him to relax.

The cold air coming through the cracks in the window frame collected on the sweat dewing Hux’s face, making the damp hairs on the back of his neck itch. Kylo pulled back the hood of his sweater, his neck was flushed and his eyes were feverish. He cocked his hips and stuck his tongue out at Hux.

With his hands on the mattress, wrists pressed against Kylo’s flanks, Hux pulled back. Kylo groaned into the palms of his hands as he spread his thighs for Hux to press back up against. They fucked slow, with Hux closing his eyes and Kylo lying back on the covers, feet caught on the backs of his thighs.

Hux dropped down, pressing Kylo into the sheets with his body, making him grunt and squirm. He was so warm between Kylo’s legs, caught in the feeling of his cock being squeezed by Kylo’s body as he struggled too keep his breathing even. Rocking his hips down against Kylo, Hux pushed a hand up his hoodie, scoring his stomach and chest with his nails. Kylo dropped his arm onto the back of Hux’s neck, pulling him down as his fingers reached around to pinch his ear.

They got into the rhythm of it, equally seeming to get what they wanted out of the encounter. Kylo had his head tipped to the side as Hux pressed his face against his neck – forgetting that there was a body underneath him and not just a thought to keep him warm.

Hux almost bit through his tongue when his ear was yanked and Kylo to said with jarring glee, “Is that a signed Wombats vinyl record?”  
Hux looked up from the pillow. Kylo was squinting at the wall opposite the bed where beside a corkboard hung a framed record. He had finally willed himself to put it up after keeping it in storage for years.

Kylo shifted his legs up on Hux’s hips as he leaned forward to get a better look, simultaneously squeezing around his cock. Hux winced as Kylo babbled, suddenly forgetting that they were fucking.

“Christ, Hux,” Kylo laughed, squeezing Hux’s shoulders. “I thought you would have been immune to that phase. So how—”

Hux didn’t try to follow the words that bubbled out of Kylo like froth from a faucet. He pulled back and pushed off on his arms. Hux gripped the base of his cock and removed it from Kylo’s hole despite the whine of disappointment and tapped the latex covered head against his ass, leaving damp marks.

Though being only bones and grease, Kylo struggled and fought when Hux tipped him onto his stomach. He shoved down Kylo’s face into the pillow to stop his eyes from wandering around the room and pushed his cock back inside him. A thin squeal shuddered through Kylo as Hux’s thighs slapped against his.

Hux didn’t hesitate with the pace, settling to fuck Kylo on the small creaking bed in the chilled room. He pushed up his hoodie, showing his pale back and green-purple tinted ribs to the light of the window. Hux groped his chest as his hips worked against Kylo’s ass and rubbed his fingers over the soft points of his nipples. Kylo was panting into the pillow which he held tight in his clammy hands.

Hux leaned forward, pressing his chest to Kylo’s back, feeling the shuddering whines pass through Kylo’s bones as the mattress springs rattled. The metal almost seemed to hiccup with every slap of skin against Kylo’s ass, damp with lube and sweat.

Hux was barely breathing as he fumbled to push aside Kylo’s hoodie and grab for his cock. It was heavy and hot in his hand as he stroked it, squeezing roughly while Kylo’s knees slipped on the covers and feet twitched. Hux slammed Kylo into the pillows as he came, holding him down by the shoulder as he squeezed his dick and worked Kylo through his orgasm.

They were heaving, shivering in the heat of the room with sweat on their backs. Hux dropped forward and Kylo grunted as he was held down to the bed. Hux’s cock was still inside him, still thick and warm with cum. Hux shifted but didn’t lift up, folding his arms beside Kylo’s shoulders and breathed into the damp nape of his neck.

Kylo wheezed as he turned his face away from the pillow. He swallowed the stale air of the room and pushed back his ass to buck Hux off. But he was pressed down and squeezed by Hux’s arms as he grunted for Kylo to stop. He only just got comfortable.

They simmered under their heavy breathing, barely awake in the faint light. Kylo kicked up his legs, swinging them and tapped his heels on Hux’s bare ass.

“Do you think,” he said, “The store is still open. I ran out of Froot Loops.”

Hux groaned and sighed into his hand. Slowly, he dropped off Kylo’s back and licked the sweat on his lip as he rolled off the condom with numb fingers. Kylo wiped the lube off his bare, red ass with his sleeve.

The clump of latex was pushed off the edge of the bed, onto the floor where Hux was certain he would step on it in the morning. Kylo watched him with a hand under his chin.

“We aren’t doing this in my bed,” Kylo told him. He scraped his hair behind one ear when Hux squinted at him.

“And why are you trying to turn my apartment into a brothel?”

“There is a hole in my mattress, and I guess u need a whole one if I am planning on having you fuck me through it.”

Kylo buried his face back in the pillow when Hux swatted his ass. He pulled the hood over his head as he kicked his legs, a flush coming down his ass and his thighs. Hux watched the colour flood around the moles and freckles on the sallow skin, the blue islands of old tattoos that started to lose their shape.

 

* * *

   
He got the call in the early morning, before Hux gained the courage to let go of his empty but still warm coffee cup. His step mother was very sick, it was an urgent family matter. He was instructed to buy a plane ticket and call into work – take an unspecified time off and ignore the consequences (it wasn’t time for him to be selfish).

Shaking out of his skin on the buzz of the airport coffee, Hux boarded the plane with just a carry-on bag and the clothes he left out for work. He slept through the flight, waking up briefly to an attendant offering something to drink. He was tempted to ask for something strong, to be loose enough to be unaware of what was occurring. But opted for water.

Rain scattered on the windows of the taxi as Hux read out the name of the street to the driver. The swaying of the car and the pauses at the traffic lights made Hux groggy, mind a blur as the taxi crossed the city to the suburban streets, to the neighbourhood with tall fences and trees dividing the properties. It had been the few yet left unconverted into apartments or private offices.

There were cars packed into the driveway of his father’s property and on the curb of the street. The front yard was gravel with weeds growing between the rocks. A birdbath like a forgotten centre piece was over spilling with rainwater. Baskets of dead petunias hung beside the unlocked front door. Hux rung the door bell and stood under the overhang. He paused when he reached to ring for the second time and tested the door handle. It opened under his hand.

For the longest moment, as Hux stood in the hallway of the large, grey-toned hallway, there was silence. He held his breath, feeling the rain drops run down his face.

Cutlery screeched onto a ceramic plate in the kitchen. Voices hissed upstairs as furniture scraped on the thick timber floorboards.  
From the hallway, Hux watched his cousin’s ash brown head appear at the end of the corridor, the house phone in one hand. Hux had never been close enough with his family to know anything beyond their professions and occasionally the number of offspring. But they found bitter camaraderie as they listened to Brendol pacing with the nurses in the upstairs corridor.

The house was already in mourning. What close family had been willing to make it at short notice was sitting at the kitchen table with rapidly vanishing cups of coffee and tea. Hux was on the step of the back door, one of his cousins stood beside him – Paul or Charlie, whichever. He asked Hux if he had yet booked a hotel, if he had heard about so-and-so coming from over the Atlantic.

Rain ran rivers on the toes of Hux’s shoes as he was asked by Paul-or-Charlie how was Christmas before opting to fill the silence with a recitation of his own holiday with a wife and three toddlers. Hux had spent Christmas with the reheated complimentary dinner from work and Fantastic Planet playing on his laptop. For New Years, he stayed up until five with Kylo, kicking up the snowdrifts collected on the streets as they kept warm with the tequila they drank.

They got to the apartment block with the intentions to sleep but fucked in Hux’s bed. Twice. Once half dressed with their shoes on, again under the covers with Kylo in Hux’s lap. They woke up to a fire alarm and crawled downstairs in a share of Hux’s clothes. They were shivering, still drunk, under the eyes of their apartment block.

The hotel Hux booked was somehow bigger than his apartment. He lied on the bed, scrolling through his phone with the battery at four percent. He ignored the work emails popping up on his screen as he connected to the Wi-Fi, choosing to pretend to be affected by the circumstances. He texted Phasma that his status remained as living.

An echo of the orange streetlights stained the room’s ceiling. Hux was lying on top of the covers in his clothes, his bag at the door. He didn’t have Kylo’s number. He had never asked for it.

Hux thought he felt a smudge of guilt before he fell asleep, his phone pressed to his side with the alarm set. The rain had stopped, Hux was snoring into the collar of his coat.

Thursday saw the passing of Brendol’s wife. The relatives and close acquaintances amassed in the living room, cautious to twitch a finger as they listened to the noises upstairs. Hux winced at the wailing voices of his half siblings. There was a car waiting in the drive to take the body to funeral home; Brendol didn’t like wasting time. The body of the woman who told Hux that she wasn’t his mother and would not try to replace her. She hadn’t even tried too acknowledge him.

Someone offered Hux a cigarette. He smoked as he slid down the back of the armchair and looked at the yellowing ceiling.

For days, people piled into the house with condolences. Brendol had received them with a marble face before guiding them around the house by the arm, pointing to frames and china in glass cabinets with the pinkie of the hand that was otherwise occupied with liquor. By the time the house would be empty of guests, Brendol would stand in the living room, swaying forward, spitting slurred reprimands at his children and immediate family.

Hux’s lips felt glued. He refused to respond his father when acknowledged by him in the half coherent rants the drinks had induced him into. In the hotel room, Hux lied under the covers, thumbing the contacts list on his phone.

Most nights, Hux ended up with his hand in underwear, a thumb caught on his lip and eyes closed. He pretended not to think of Kylo, of having him in his lap, a pressure of warmth in the cold room. His lips were always bruised with red, eyes downcast as placed his hands on Hux’s shoulders. He was full of hard edges under all those oversized clothes, but soft too. Too soft for the lines of blue on his skin and the sharp ridges of his elbows and knees.

The funeral was on the first warm day. Snowdrops were peppering the ground underneath the trees in the cemetery. Hux watched a squirrel paw through damp dead leaves in an unfazed trek between the headstones. He hadn’t realised when the ceremony ended. The mourners slipped down the grass back to the cars and Hux said goodbye to his cousins and the stray distant relatives at the house, unaware of what he had spoken to them.

A taxi took him to the hotel and he paid the driver with the bills his found in his father’s ashtray. He booked a flight for the next morning and slept face down into the mattress.

 

* * *

  

The snow had melted on the streets, collecting as brown mush around the drains. Hux was speaking on the phone to Phasma as he unlocked the door of the building’s foyer. The elevator was out of order and he took the steps two or three at a time.

There was a smell of an overheated vacuum. Someone was having a coughing fit upstairs. The kitchen door was propped open with a box of Capri-Suns.

Hux ended the call with Phasma and dropped the phone into his pocket as he unlocked the door of his apartment. The fridge in the kitchen closed, rattling the bottles in the door racks. A pan was slammed on the stove.

Hux shoved his bag behind his door and walked down the corridor to the kitchen. The peeling lino was curling away from the threshold, showing off the dirty boards. Music was playing, a low buzz that Hux was only able to distinguish once he passed inside.

Kylo was at the stove, the smell of burnt takeaway hung over him. He wore his sweater with the hood up, pyjama pants low on his hips with a black and white logo print, and his feet were bare. The cord of earbuds was winding down to his front pocket. He slammed the pan on the stove as he tried to shift his cooking.

Biting his smirk, Hux walked toward him and reached forward. He pressed his open hand under Kylo’s arm, where his ribs were prominent through skin and cloth.

Kylo flinched from Hux’s touch with a spasm as his shoulders jerked to his ears. Hux hand’t realised when he turned, much less when he reached for his pocket.

There was a schick of metal as a pen knife flicked in Hux’s peripheral. It slashed in front of his face. Hux fell back, feet skidding on the patchwork lino. He crashed onto the floor, skull cracking on the yellow plastic of the fridge.

Over him stood Kylo. In one hand he fisted the knife, holding it at head height. The sleeve of his sweater had drooped down on his pale forearm with protruding ropey muscles and vessels. Old tattoos were stamped on his skin, the head of a Doberman on his inner wrist was split like broken china – glued back together with the pattern uneven. Pale lines casted shadows beside the head of the collared dog.

Kylo swallowed on Hux’s name. The knife closed with a click and disappeared in the front pocket of the hoodie. He dropped onto his knees and choked Hux with his arms around his neck and shoulders. The earbuds cracked on the floor.

Hux sat up with Kylo clamped onto him. He breathed shallowly, trying not to smell the unwashed skin on the nape of Kylo’s neck and the grease of his hair.

“I thought you fucking moved or some fucking bullshit,” Kylo said as he pressed Hux’s face into his chest. He sighed through his teeth. “Where the fuck else am I meant to get a dick without getting fucked up first.”

Hux startled and began to laugh, bringing his arms up to Kylo’s shoulders. “Oh well, sorry. Should I have slipped you a note?” Hux pulled his hands down Kylo’s forearms, pushing up the sleeves of his hoodie. He felt for the split tattoo, pressing his fingers over it and the groves surrounding its stain.

“I and all of my abandonment issues would have appreciated it.” Kylo sat back on Hux’s thighs, his toe nails scratched the floor as his feet slid. “You owe me your number.”

“My—Number?”

Kylo looked down at Hux’s hands and pulled away, sobering as he sat back with his palms on the lino.

“Where you been?” he asked.

Hux shrugged. “Home? I think. My step mother passed away.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Kylo frowned. “Were you—”

“No. Not at all.”

Hux stood and took Kylo’s hands, pulling him to his height.

Hux switched off the stove as they walked out of the kitchen and turned off the light, guiding Kylo into the corridor. The pocket knife clicked in Kylo’s hoodie on a ziploc of change that crinkled with the mass of empty candy wrappers that Kylo dumped into Hux’s waste basket.

Kylo sat on the bed with his arms inside the hoodie and watched Hux drop his clothes into the laundry bag as he undressed. Once in a t-shirt and underwear, he crawled between Kylo’s thighs and pulled off his pyjama sweatpants while Kylo chewed the sleeve of his hoodie.  
Hux covered the pale, boney ankles with his hands and squeezed. Kylo was staring up at him, eyes round and face burning up. For the first time, Hux didn’t know what to do.

 

The door shuddered in the frame and footsteps scratched the carpet in the hallway. Hux turned over in his bed. On the floor, his phone lit up – charger plugged into an extension cord.

Down the corridor, two doors clapped together as the draft pulled them closed. Hux groaned and pulled apart his sore eyelids. He had showered and found clean clothes after Kylo fell asleep in his bed. He had ridden Hux’s lap twice: once barely undressed while Hux sat against the wall and smoked, the second time while he lied across the bed with his hand on Kylo’s hips.

Without unpacking his bag, Hux rolled into bed – already warmed by Kylo. But when Hux forced himself awake, he found the gap between himself and the floor empty.

Hux dropped onto his chest on the mattress, hanging partially off as he rubbed his face. He curled his feet back under the covers as he looked down at the floor. Until summer, Hux never bothered to close the blinds; he woke up before sunlight anyway. In the dim echo of the streetlights, he could see a black lump of fabric at the foot of the bed on the floor, a sleeve thrown out.

Hux lifted up onto his knees and shuffled to the edge of the bed to reach down and pick up the hoodie from the floor. He felt the printed logo of ‘Princess’ under his fingers.

With boots half laced and jeans hanging undone, Hux left the apartment. He held the hoodie rolled under his arm as he walked to the door onto the staircase landing. Under the broken green emergency exit light, there was a second door leading out from the landing onto the steps of the fire escape. They were an old rusting spiral pillar with black peeling paint and bubbling metal climbing up the side of the building to the roof.

Hux took the fire escape. The cold wind clapped over him as he opened the door and left the landing. The torrent picked out the warmth from behind his collar and under the hems. He grabbed the hand railing as the steps shuddered under his feet – barely visible in the early morning of winter.

He didn’t think as he walked, taking turn after turn after turn. Lights prickled on the roads, sirens flared in the city. Hux’s hand was becoming rigid on the rail.

He had almost forgotten why he walked the staircase when he tripped over Kylo’s leg. He was leaning forward on his railing, shoulders to his ears and one foot pushed back out onto the grated landing.

Hux caught himself on the handrail, gasping air down his burning throat as he stared into the gap where the boxed spirals of the staircase swam.

Kylo was watching over his shoulder when Hux stood from the rail. “That would have been a big tumble,” he said.

Hux frowned and hit the back of Kylo’s thigh with the hoodie hanging limply from his hand. “Could have avoided all of this if I stayed in bed.”

A gust crashing on the building whipped Kylo’s t-shirt around his torso. There was something wrong with how naked his neck seemed as his hair was pulled back and bare arms stood out in the dark. Hux saw his flat, pale stomach in the low light as the wind rucked his t-shirt.

“Here,” Hux said as he straightened out the hoodie and held it out toward Kylo. “Put this on.”

Kylo tipped his head forward and held himself in place as Hux pulled the hoodie over his head and onto his shoulders. He pushed through his arms while Hux straightened the hood of the sweater, but then Kylo pulled it up anyway and tightened the strings. Hux pushed his shoulder.

“So, are you gonna put me over your shoulder and carry me down?” Kylo said and leaned back on the hand railing, uninterested in the empty dark air behind him.

“Will I have to?”

Kylo looked him down. “Do you care?”

The wind pushed Hux back against the railing. His eyes watered and scalp stung. Tugging the collar of his sweater closed around his throat, Hux reached for Kylo and took his cold wrist.

They tripped on the steps as they braced from the wind and their heads swam from the disorientating flickers of the dull street lights. They had argued if they reached their floor and entered two wrong landings. Kylo’s cold, rough fingers were on Hux’s fist when they came back into his apartment.

Hux sat Kylo onto the bed and pushed his hands into Kylo’s sleeves to feel his freezing skin. Kylo shivered and tried to hold onto Hux’s fingers when he went to leave the room.

Someone had left the light on in the kitchen and the fridge ajar. Hux leaned against the closed door, watching the dots of the stained lino scatter in his eyes. He didn’t know the time, or day of the week. He was missing too much work, but he cared less than he could have a month ago.

Every part of Hux felt aching, begging to shut down and react to nothing. But he moved because he was meant to make Kylo tea, but even then, he forgot the tea itself. Hux laughed, hysterically – he was alone, what did it matter.

Burning his fingers tips on the instant coffee he had found, Hux wandered back to his apartment. On the bed in the black room, the dark fizzled around Kylo. He was lying with his legs hanging off the edge, his head on his arms. His joints clicked as he sat up to allow Hux onto the bed.

They didn’t speak. Kylo took the mug and Hux sat down to take off his boots. Sitting against the wall, he watched Kylo while he drank, slurping on the rim of the mug. He smelled of the cold air that pushed on the window – begging its way inside.

Hux’s head was tipping forward when Kylo’s bare cold feet pressed to his thighs, his side under his arm, cheek on Hux’s shoulder under his chin. He was as chilled as the draft and Hux shivered when he was kissed on the neck.

 

 

 

 


End file.
